


The Probability of Combined Events

by ballpoint



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Avengers
Genre: Angst, Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-31
Updated: 2010-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/ballpoint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve finds himself transported to another dimension, where order rules at the behest of Tony Stark. Before Steve can go back to his own world however, he has to deal with this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Probability of Combined Events

**Author's Note:**

> There's scene chewing Tony Stark, and dodgy comic book science.

**The Rise of The Triumvirate**

 

 _After the X-men were slain by the Sentinels, the meta heroes went to ground to gather their forces. Most of the major news networks at the time expressed their shock, because the probabilities were two in ten thousand. The Sentinels were powerful, true, but no one had been ever truly convinced that the X-men might have come to such an end. No one knows what tipped the scales in the Sentinels' favour, only that the world was paralysed by the possibility of the unknown (see Chapter Five - 'Operation: Hail Mary Pass')._

 _Out of the horde of heroes, only three stepped forward, with the aim of restoring the planet to what it had been before. Steve Rogers, known to the world as Captain America, the shield bearer. Thor, god of Asgard, brother in arms to the meta men known as The Avengers, and Tony Stark, a man known for his keen mind and business pursuits. Given that these men were stalwart members of the defunct Avengers, they offered stability and hope to a world gone mad. The press soon coined a name for the three, _The Triumvirate_ , and the name stuck._

The first thing the Triumvirate did when they came to power was to restore peace to the planet. The cause of the probability had been neutralised, and to guard disorder from ever happening again, safe guards were implemented to protect meta humans from themselves and others. Thor and Steve Rogers soon retired into the shadows, with Tony Stark being the 'face' of The Triumvirate, where he still remains today, bringing order to the world.

Excerpt taken from Contemporary History (2009:55)

 **Chapter One**

 

 **Marvel 616: SHIELD HQ, scientific apartments, three floors below**

When Steve decided to heed the call of his President to serve as the head of Secret Avengers, he understood that his brief extended to counter terrorism and spying. Accepted that he would have to go undercover and take on assignments which were beyond even the remit of his stint on Mighty Avengers. Some things were best left to be done in secret and with wet-works, instead of the comparable Kleig lights and battle cries as an Avenger. He understood that, and again accepted that, although he'd be the first to admit that Bucky might have been better suited for this role than he seemed to be. But, like a good solider, Steve knew that the objective was not only to see the hill, but take it.

But this was a step too far.

"This is-" Steve began, as he stood in front of a table, with nothing but an old boot laying on its side. The leather was cracked with age, and if Steve were to hazard a guess as to what the original colour of the boot was, he might have said a brown. Or probably black, which was moot considering that it seemed leached of all colour.

They were in the SHIELD labs- not in the helicarrier- but somewhere so secret that not even he knew the exact co ordinates, far enough below ground for the temperature to be constant, and relatively bomb proof. The high, soaring ceilings, with its bright, simulated day light bulbs made it seem as if they were far above ground instead of leagues below it. As the head of a high ranking military operation, Steve knew that it made a great deal of sense for him to keep tabs with the scientists, to see what tools could be used by them to keep ahead of other parties who wanted them for ill use. Of course, he couldn't see what the deal was with an old shoe, but Steve had been around people like Hank Pym and Tony Stark long enough not to dismiss such things lightly.

"Not designer," Natasha mused, as she lowered her head and peered at the old, cracked boot.

"This boot cost the US about seven hundred million to make."

"I take it back," the amusement in Natasha's voice was palpable. "Are you looking to be on _Project Runway_ , Forge?"

Steve raised his eyebrows, his forehead wrinkling in surprise as he peered at the boot some more. Was it some sort of exploding device? Or vanishing ray or-?

"Did you ever read _Harry Potter_ , Captain?" Forge asked, as he tapped various equations on the surface of a tablet.

"Can't say I did."

"Hmm, too bad." Forge smiled, and the severe lines in his face softened immeasurably.

"Is it imperative that I read the text? I-"

"No, it's only magic," Forge said, his voice a tad too light and dismissive. But before Steve could follow that line of thought, Forge continued: "In the books, there's a device called a 'Port Key'. It's a device which looks relatively inconspicuous. A lantern, an old shoe. You touch it and it transports you to wherever it's charmed to do so."

"You spent all this money on an old shoe?"

"This is the prototype. If harnessed properly, we could use it for stealth missions, less risk to our men in the field, instead of parachuting them in, we'd just use these keys."

Steve folded his arms, and walked around the boot, half staring at it, half wondering.

"In Fury's time, you guys make him LMDs and for Captain Rogers, a shoe?" Natasha's lips were a curve of amusement. "How delicious."

"All things are tricks of the trade, Ms Romanova," Forge pointed out. "Everything has a use."

"Okay," Steve intervened, more to curtail any sort of bickering than any interest in this old shoe. "How do you even get this to work, anyway?"

"Pick it up," Forge said. "Hold it in your hand. At the most, you should find yourself in the staff mess above. We've tested it, and that's as far as it goes. I've done a few tweaks here and there but..." his voice trailed off.

To tell the truth, a bite to eat wouldn't be such a bad idea, Steve thought as he took up the shoe. The air twisted and rolled around him. He felt as if he were caught in a turbine, so sudden was the vortex of wind.

"It's normal," Forge yelled over the swirl. Steve nodded, and hung on, his breath ripped from his lungs as he felt himself falling. His vision greying at the edges before -

* * *

 

"Come on, we have to move him."

"Easy, Rikki, we don't have to do anything. Who's he, anyway?"

"Sssh, Anya. Be loud enough to alert the cops, why dontcha? I dunno. But we can't leave him here. You know what the Stark-droids are like?"

"Oy," Anya slapped her forehead. "Right, he looks like a heavy one, and kind of... familiar."

"The odds are that everyone looks familiar, the probabilities are on their side. But let's save that for back at the clubhouse, okay?" Rikki hissed, as she slipped her hands under his shoulders. "His uniform is nothin' we've seen before. The dark blue with the star. Cover that up, hey?"

"You're just jealous because I know everyone," Anya grinned, as they pulled him away from the lights that scythed the darkness into bits, the low hum of the drones that leered too near.

Rikki pushed her goggles from her forehead into her hair, creating a sort of headband to keep her bangs out of her face. "You need to cut my hair," she huffed, as they hauled Steve out of the muddy water in the ditch.

"No, I don't. You need to stand back," Anya shooed Rikki away. "I think I can do this."

"No!" Rikki hissed. "You know what happens when you use your powers?"

"But he's too heavy for you," Anya reached out and skimmed Rikki's cheek with her fingers. Nothing more than a butterfly's touch, but enough for Rikki to flush with pleasure, and relent. "All right. Five minutes, no more."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Anya grinned as she hefted Steve in her arms, as she smiled at her girlfriend. She only had a window of four minutes before some bad juju happened, and the clock was still ticking.

* * *

Consciousness came to Steve in waves. First, a drift and red behind trembling eyelids; each break bringing in new sensory information. A smattering of voices, some high and clear and childish. Others deeper, more adult, but all of them guarded, speaking in shorthand and code.

The final crash of consciousness came when he heard the drone, and a distant tinny voice, as if it were being broadcast from a tannoy.  
 _"Today's temperature is seventy nine degrees Fahrenheit, with a humidity index of eighteen percent. Stay cool throughout the day, with constant hydration. Keep an eye out for the young and the infirm."_

"Jeez, won't that ever stop?"

Steve pushed himself up on his elbows, and he touched his forehead. The world wasn't spinning, his ears weren't ringing, nor were they leaking blood. The mattress under his weight was laughably thin, as he felt every bump and jolt of the floor underfoot with each movement. _Not the best bed that I've ever slept in_ , Steve thought, as he rubbed the kinks from his neck. He allowed himself a moment to reminisce about the body formed mattresses back at the mansion, then Stark Tower, now at SHIELD.

"Hey, he's awake." The voice, sharp and belonging to the young auburn haired kid with the bangs, held back by goggles, and a young uniform that reminded him of ... Bucky? No, Nomad, he remembered that they fought beside each other some time ago. But she looked at him with the unabashed curiosity of a young teenager, no inkling of awareness that they had met before.

"Who are you?" Steve asked, testing her.

"Wow," her laughter was low and hoarse. "That's not the question people usually ask when they first wake up."

"You both sound and look American," Steve observed, only to be cut off by the girls' astonished expressions.

" _American_?" exclaimed the other girl, her eyes widening in disbelief. "We're not American."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean about what do we mean?" the other girl asked, and before she could say anything, she was cut off by a sharp rap on the door.

"Rikki? Anya Sofia? Who are you talking to?" a voice - very annoyed and very feminine- asked, each word punctuated with a step on the stairs, the thumping only getting louder as she came closer. Due to the hollow reverb of an echo, Steve surmised that they might have been in a basement. Which probably explained why the room smelt of damp and mildew.

"Crap, it's Miz Danvers!" Anya jumped up right beside Rikki, and before they had a chance to latch the door; it bust open, almost off its hinges, and standing in the doorway, her face set in stern lines was Carol.

"Carol-"

At her name, she turned towards him, her eyes widening with disbelief, and anger. "You? What are you doing here?" she raised a fist, her body lit with the power of a sunburst. Instinct took over, and Steve rolled off the bed, smelling the singe of bedclothes and wood as her blast blew the bed to smithereens. "You were dead!"

"No, Ms Danvers!" Anya jumped in front of Steve. "No! Remember your powers and the limit!"

"You don't know who he is. Girls, stand behind me."

"Please, Miz Danvers," Rikki begged, as she grabbed a cushion from the ground and threw it in Carol's face, which caused her to send her shot wide. With a BOOM Carol's blast punched a hole in the wall above the TV. "We don't know who he is, but we know that you have two more minutes left before we get lit up like a disco ball in Times Square."

By this time, Steve had gotten to his feet. His senses still dulled by the edges of fatigue which had yet to wear off and made his reflexes slow. Who - he knew that Carol and himself had run ins, from her drinking to her stance along the lines of The Civil War, but he had never seen such anger. Not like this: her eyes were blazing, her teeth grit, as she _wrestled_ to gain control of her temper. In front of him, were the leather clad boots of Rikki, and the girl called Anya Sofia off to Carol's left.

In the lull of the explosion, Steve heard ragged breathing. "We couldn't leave him out there," she said. "We couldn't."

"You brought him here."

Anya stepped forward. "There was no where else for him to go. We had to get him before the drones saw."

"You're right," Carol said between breaths. Not due to her being out of shape; the muscles in her forearms put paid to that thought. "I'm sorry, girls."

"It's okay," Rikki said, her voice wavering and sounding so very young. She still had yet to move, and Steve, not wanting to hide behind a young woman when he could defend himself, got to his feet, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks for the save Rikki and - Anya ?" - at the question, the other girl nodded her confirmation. "I think Ms Danvers and myself will need to speak now."

"But- "

"You heard him, Rikki. Anya Sofia." Carol jerked her thumb towards her chest, pointed her finger in the direction of the room. "We need to talk, and you need to stay here and tidy this mess."

Anya pursed her lips, Rikki folded her arms across her chest and almost pouted. Steve knew mutiny when he saw it, especially when it came to headstrong teenagers doing what they thought was right.

"Okay, Ms Danvers." Rikki bent down, picked up the cushion and made to throw it to the other side of the room. At Carol's glare, she caught herself in mid motion, walked over to the sofa, and placed the cushion right there, on the sofa.

"Okay, you," Carol jabbed a finger in his direction, as she yanked the door open, and with a motion of her chin, she pointed Steve in the direction of the stair case. "Upstairs."

* * *

'Upstairs' was a nondescript room, with a wooden floor, and furniture. That didn't hold Steve's attention, not like outside. Not forgetting that Carol was in the room, but too curious to pay total attention to her, Steve moved towards the window, but not forgetting his training, he did so stealthily, moving along the wall, walking to just the edge of the window, and looking out. Outside, it seemed to be still the geographical landscape of New York, but something was off. The profile of the buildings seemed the same, but there were a platoon of Zeppelins floating about, with information about the weather winking along their sides in neon.

"First of all, where are we?"

"No, that's not the first question. That will be, 'Who are you?'"

"I'm Steve Rogers."

"Impossible."

"No, I am."

"He's dead."

"I- came back, am now the Director of SHIELD. Carol, you should know this."

Carol laughed, and it was bitter.

"Tony Stark tapped Maria Hill as Director of SHIELD, she has been since forever, ever since the disassembling, all those years ago. Steve Rogers died, in the service of the Triumvirate," Carol made a face as if she'd eaten a particularly bitter fruit. "Thor decided to step aside, leaving matters to man, and Tony Stark has been ruling ever since."

"Triumvirate?" Steve repeated, his mind reeling with what he was being told. "I - that would have never happened in my - not in the United States."

"What are you talking about, soldier?"

"Where are we?"

"What do you mean?"

Steve's words dried on his tongue as he looked at Carol's blank stare. She might have been good, but not that good. Carol was air force, not CIA. Nor was she black ops, or deep cover. She'd never been one to be able to hide or shy away from her feelings, which made her one of the strongest and most stalwart members of The Mighty Avengers, and yet, they cost her dear. This Carol had little differences from the Carol that he knew. Not that Steve recognised it at first glance but as she spoke and moved, the differences became clear; she had the same bearing, and confidence bordering on what some people might have considered rudeness, but the differences came through. Her eyes were harder, the lines around them more pronounced. A chill crept in Steve's bones, the icy fingers of fear touching his heart, and not wanting to hear the answer, but realising that he must, he said; "Anya Sofia said that she wasn't American."

"American?" Carol shook her head. "No, we aren't American. Where are you from?"

"Where are we?"

Carol looked at him, as if he were soft in the head. "We're on the planet Stark," she said.

Steve blinked, he opened his mouth, and nothing came out. Clearing his throat, he asked again, trying to keep his voice level, because operating in a blind panic was good for no one.

"Stark?"

"Yes," Carol said. "We are inhabitants of the planet Stark."

 **Chapter Two**

"Steve. I can't believe that you thought you could slip into my world, and not be seen."

"You have other people in hiding from you, I thought I could just take a chance, and hedge my bets."

"They are of no concern to me." Tony's tones were easy, almost friendly. "They live because there's no gain in letting them die."

"I don't understand," Steve splayed his hands as a show of his good faith. Tony stood in front of him, helmet under his arm, with the casual air of a kid holding his arm around a basketball. "They say that you were a part of the Triumvirate, and this is the planet Stark? Why would you do this?"

Up to when he'd seen Tony, Steve had half hoped that it might have been a coincidence. Another man who took on his name, like a sheep in wolf's clothing, probably a Morgan Stark, but this man looked like the same Tony that he knew; hair cut enough to tame the curl into a slight wave, keen eyes and mobile mouth. The only thing he knew was the fact that he wasn't in his world, that the last thing he remembered in his world was the fact that he had held a shoe.

"I was told that we were on Planet Stark, and that myself in this world died. How long-?"

"When the world fell," Tony turned his palms upwards, beams of light splaying from where his repulsor beams normally shot out. "We needed a new habitat, so I created a new one from the old. Turned back pollution, repaired the atmosphere - used science as saviour. _I_ rescued this planet, dragged it from disaster inch by inch. It was only my right, my... _responsibility_ that I guarded it."

"And the meta humans?"

Tony took off his helmet, his eyes glinting with rich amusement, as if Steve had told him a very dirty joke. "Meta-humans. Mutants. They couldn't be trusted to keep to an order, to understand hierarchy, especially after-"

"After?"

"Steve was sentimental, and weak." Again, he turned his palm upwards, and a beam of light shot up from it, before splaying wide, and the images played across the room like a moving mural. When Tony started to speak again, the images started to flicker and move as if they were marionettes directed by their master. The images moved in front of his eyes - Tony and Steve standing before a field of the dead, their bodies splayed and broken like so many dolls, as if they were destroyed by a particularly malicious, ill tempered child. This Steve's eyes widened, his face sober, with the tightness around his eyes and lips like a man accustomed to the sight of death, but still humane enough to despair at the cost and _waste_ of it.

This Steve took a step forward, dropped to the ground where a figure lay prone. He raised his hand, placed it on the corpse's shoulder, and said, "God speed, my friend,." Only for Steve's heart to give a short, hard rap against his ribs, as he realised who it was. "Namor."

Tony's voice over interrupted the moment, like a pantomime villain in a penny play. "This had been the perfect time for us to rule. The chance was there, heavy with destiny, waiting for us to cup its hand around it, and pluck. But some people still needed a nudge."

 

 _"We did it," Tony said as he landed with a gentle 'clunk' on the ground. In front of them, nothing but scattered bodies of Sentinels, and slain meta humans._

 _"The X-men should have called us."_

 _"If you ask Emma Frost, she'll say that they handle their own battles," Tony's voice then, tinny and distorted. "If they had all used their powers when they were directed to do so, it wouldn't have been such a slaughter."_

 _Steve shook his head, looking heartsick at the slaughter. "So many died. It's a disgrace, this shouldn't have happened."_

 _"It makes you wonder about the idea of the earth needing a benevolent dictator." Tony walked over to Steve, and placed his hand on his shoulder.  
"No, we shouldn't even think that," Steve shook his head, oblivious to Tony's hand moving to the nape of his neck-_

"What did you do?" Steve's was hoarse with disbelief, as he saw the nanites whizzing out of Tony's gloves, and embedding themselves under the surface of Steve's skin.

"I convinced him to see it my way."

"You - " outraged, Steve could barely finish the sentence. "You gave him the equivalent of a moral roofie."

Tony only shrugged. "You have to break eggs to make an omelet, Steve. He had to see it my way, so that we could save lives. So I had Steve say yes."

 _"We shouldn't- ah" Steve lightly smacked at his neck, taking his hand away to look at it. Frowned when he saw nothing there. "Sorry, I think it might have been some sort of insect."_

 _"Summer," Tony agreed. "It's been the warmest in a while. But in terms of the community, especially the meta human community, a benevolent dictator mightn't go amiss, eh Steve? If not us, who?"_

 _Steve closed his eyes, then opened them, and he seemed half somnolent, his eyes a bleary blue before he blinked and they cleared, and he might have been Steve again, save for the fact that he wasn't. Not with Tony's nanites latching themselves on to his hypothalamus._

 _"Yes," Steve repeated. "If not us, who?"_

"Once Steve fell into line, it was easy to get the world's governments on side. There were heroes that we had to put down-" Tony drew his brows together, a vertical line of frustration, as if he was still vexed over whatever happened. The holograms were less fluid, and more like flipping through images as if quickly paging through a book of pictures. Sudden, ragged, and disjointed. In one image, Carol's face close up, her body white hot as if consumed by her binary form and beyond. Reed Richard's eyes wide open, fingers clawing at his neck, gasping for air, as if being choked by an invisible force.

Reed and Tony, scrawling equations of probability across a pane of glass, numbers and fractions that Steve couldn't follow.

 _"It can't be ignored, Tony. For the sake of Order, she must be stopped."_

 

 _"Yes."_

 _"But history might damn us," Reed raised his eyes from the tablet in his hand, his manner unconcerned. The world won't realise-"_

 _"History is always on the side of the victor, Reed," Tony rubbed his thumb across his lower lip. "Defeat is not an option."_

 

Tony had always flirted with disaster, Steve knew, and accepted it as such. But not like this. Not with this sort of wanton destruction that he seemed to _feed_ on right now.

Another moment, this one still fresh, Thor's face dark with thunder, the memory rolled and shook and boomed from Tony's indignation.

 _Thou art misguided if you believe that I will stay here and rule Midgard, Tony."_

 _"How's Asgard working out for you? With the frost giants and Loki - with all the meta humans on side, we can go in and bring order to them all."_

 _"Order?" an ominous roll of thunder accompanied Thor's words. "Thy wouldst presume to speak about the divine order of things?"_

 _"I'm just saying -"_

 _Thor swung his hammer and drew it up short, its head only stopping short at Tony's reactor plate. "Thou art mistaken, for thinking a man mayhap rule alongside a God."_

 _With a clap of thunder, Thor flew off, leaving a storm behind him. Tony stood there, clad in armour, his helmet looking up to the heavens, with the rain streaming down his face._

 _"You'll be back, Thor, and you'll see the good that I've done."_

"I-" Steve's voice broke. He wanted to believe, that Tony wouldn't have done this. He couldn't have done this. Not even when he fought Tony at the height of Civil War, he never thought that Tony would have been so- "No, not this."

"Done what? Function at my uppermost potential? Steve, come, take a walk with me."

They started to walk, in Tony's office, which took up the space of an entire floor of the building. It was the first time Steve had the chance to see New York City since he'd been here, and not from surreptitious glances through windows. The skyline similar to the one that he left behind; save the odd Stark blimps which traversed the skies, like those old weather Zeppelins of old.

"Satellites?"

"No, we have yet to control the meta humans' powers in close proximity," Tony admitted. "The device can only be controlled within a mile from the ground, no further." He frowned, and Steve stopped in his tracks.

"Why would you - Tony. The meta humans, why would you want to - "

"Because the world needed order," Tony said, his voice so matter of fact, it was frightening. Too late, Steve remembered Carol's warning, and as Tony continued, absorbed in his own plans for what would have been, and the information Steve heard the night before started to make sense.

 

 **Chapter Three**

The blindfold loosened from his face, Steve opened his eyes. By the sour rancid smell, and the damp and drip over head, he thought that they might have been in the sewers.

"The Morlocks used to live here," Anya explained, as she held her flash light up, its strong beam cutting through the dark. Steve made out the forms of the bomb shelters.

"What happened?"

"Everything," Anya answered simply, with the air of a child well taught. "Order came to the world."

Before Steve had time to ask her what _that_ meant, he was met by a rag tag group of heroes. Some he thought that he recognised, like the African American in the corner with the bird on his shoulder.

"You died." Sam (Sam?) greeted flatly. "That's one thing the history books got right. You died."

"I- "

"He's not from here." Carol cut in, gesturing for silence with a swift motion of her hand across her throat.

"So he's via the means of probability? You think it might have been the the work of Tony Stark or-?"

Carol shook her head. "No. We're not speaking about this, not in front of him. Are you done?"

"Almost."

"Go on, then. I'll catch up." Carol replied before turning to Steve. "This way."

Steve half expected them to be seated round a fire, but in Tony Stark's world, even the downtrodden had access to high powered torches, and lamps.

"They function on muck," Rikki made a face. "Along the lines of aerobic respiration." She scooped up a handful of mould and muck from the ground, unscrewed the top of her flashlight and slid a handful in there, wiping the excess off with her fingers against the edge of the flashlight. "Gross."

"No, not gross. It's impressive."

"Anya Sofia, you and Rikki go on and do your homework."

"But _Carol_ -"

"I won't ask you again," Carol cut in. Anya huffed, before turning on her heel and stomping away, more in annoyance than ill temper. Steve watched her go, her ponytail bouncing up and down behind her. "Whatever the universe," he mused. "Teenagers are all alike."

"I wish they weren't so headstrong," Carol murmured, her face the softest that he'd ever seen it since he'd been here. ""But they can take care of themselves, that's what they do."

"What are they to you?"

"A second chance."

Before Steve could follow up on that however, he found himself in the midst of a meeting. Some people he thought he recognised from his world, but they didn't know him.

"He died," a youth said, his face peeking from the folds of his cloak, his body faded into shadows and darkness. "Steve Rogers, a part of the Triumvirate, to rule the world and set it to order."

"No," Steve almost recoiled from the term. "We weren't anything like that - we sought to defend the world from events when no lone hero could stand. We were the avengers, not rulers."

"It must be nice in your world," Carol sneered. "In this world, hero turned against hero. The probabilities for this according to the text books, were low. Steve, Tony and Thor, they wouldn't have turned, they wouldn't have betrayed us. So they say. Tony Stark, when Steve fell, when Thor turned, he brought order."

"I don't-"

"A long time ago," Carol began. "The X-men were wiped out, battling the sentinels and were brought them down. No one knows why, but it was a slaughter. The meta humans entered the fray. Don't ask me how, it shouldn't have happened. Even if you went by the Hypergeometric Distribution probability, it would have been six out of four thousand, six hundred and ninety."

Steve whistled. "Those are long odds."

"There was a mutant, someone who controlled probability, mutability, cardinal and fixed lines. So the history says. She threw cardinal points into mutable, blurred the fixed boundaries and," she wiped her eyes with her fingers. "And, she had to be stopped."

There was a story here, Steve knew. As much as questions pressed against his lips, he fell quiet, allowing Carol to speak.

"I was younger then. I believed everything they told me." Carol lifted her eyes to his. "You must understand - everything is probable, the odds of separable events, multiple trials, Anything could ruin The Order of All Things. She had to be stopped."

"You stopped her."

Carol lapsed into a moody silence, as she reached for the flask on her hip, unhitched it and took a swing. From the flush that crept across her cheeks, the liquor had a kick to it. She gave a hard, wry smile. "Yes. God help me, I did."

"That's not the way to tell a story," a voice came from the shadows. Soft, with the lilt of a dialect more to do with the influence of high German rather than Eastern European inflections. The cloak, a rich scarlet in the light swirled around her feet. Her features were hidden by the shadow of her hood.

"What are you doing?" Carol sprang to her feet, but the figure didn't shrink, or take a step back.

"Forgive Carol, she hasn't been the same since the world got torn asunder and remade to order."

"You shouldn't," Carol took a step towards her, her hand outstretched, her palm turned upwards. "We're trying-"

"Captain Rogers didn't turn, not as the text books said," the figure went on. "He had a change of heart after he saw what was done in their name. After he saw what Tony did to all who were homo superior, either meta human or mutant. Captain Rogers was a good man."

"Just too late."

"Nothing is too late, or in vain, Carol. Or else you wouldn't have taken Rikki or Anya Sofia-"

"We're not going through this again," Carol shook her head, her ponytail bouncing from side to side. "I'll check on Sam. Are you sure that you'll be ready?"

"Yes."

"May the odds be on our side," Carol said before she stalked off, leaving Steve behind with the others. He wanted to know, God help him, what was going on here.

"Can you leave us alone, please?" the cloaked figure asked, and everyone obeyed, retreating into the gloom at the edges of the light. She stepped forward, and pushed her cloak back. It was Wanda - but not as he knew her- whole and beautiful. This Wanda scarred, one side of her face a lattice work of waxen scars which extended to her hairline. Once Steve noticed this, he focused on her movements more. What he had took for her being deliberate, might have been because of residual pain. The small steps, the slow movement of hands.

"Wanda."

"Not as you know her, from your world."

"I assume you're the one who threatened The Order Of Things."

"It could have been any meta human, any mutant. I was just convenient, and caught. I got off lightly, however. Carol should have been so lucky."

"Lucky? If I'm reading right, she wounded you."

Wanda didn't smile, nor did her features betray anger. She was just filled with genuine sadness for the woman who'd wounded her. "She believed Tony, and his vision, with all of her being - until she saw what it cost me."

 

oOo

"What are you asking, Tony?" Steve said at last, as he allowed himself to come back to this moment. He stretched his hand out, his fingers pressed against the cool smoothness of glass as he looked at the world before him. The landscape of the city, so much like New York, like _home_ , his heart ached. There were differences, like the smog free sky, the lights brighter, a lot more stark in their own way. In the skies, the blimps hummed as they crept across the air, with the stats of the weather (humidity, temperature, cloud cover and wind speed) crawling along their sides in neon, like stats along the bottom of the TV screens. If he hadn't known what the Zeppelins represented, Steve might have been charmed.

"Don't be coy."

"I'm not," Steve stepped away from the glass, his fingers leaving heat streaks and prints in their wake. "You're asking me to do something big, Tony, the least you can do is say it."

Tony's laugh was warm, low and appreciative. "What are the possibilities that you might say yes?"

"You won't know until you ask."

"All right," Tony held up his hand, his features lit with amusement. "I'm asking you to side with me, to shape the world."

Steve shook his head, and mourned for the choices made. "No, I can't."

Tony allowed his hand to fall from Steve's shoulder, his eyes dark, his face shuttered.

"You can't allow yourself to be swayed by the mumblings of others, Steve. It's only the weak who abhor order."

"Tony, you can't -"

"You can't stop me."

It was amazing how one couldn't be immune to heart break. How, after he and Tony had that argument in his world, and Steve had died for it, floated through the slipstream of time and came back again it still hurt. What were the possibilities of this happening again, and on the second time around-

"No," Steve stepped forward, and swung, feeling bone and flesh giving way under his fist. Heartsick, his blood a roar in his ears, Steve realised that he could still be angry, disgusted, and close to tears, and feeling all three at the same time. "No!"

Tony blocked Steve's second punch, the blood bleeding freely from his nose. "Always weak, whatever the universe," he snarled, his teeth red and stained with his own blood. "Despite everything. After I killed this Steve, I scanned alternative possibilities for a Steve who might have had the- ugh!"

A snapped front kick brought Tony down, but before Steve could follow through, the building rocked with thunder; their surroundings tinted a white-blue with balled lightning.

 _"Enough!"_ a voice rolled from the heavens, the air reverberating with the rumble. Steve threw his hand across his eyes, squinting and blinking. The window shattered into shards of glass, pieces slicing into Steve' s flesh.

"I -" Steve felt hands as they clasped his, the fingers slippery and sticky with blood. Half blinded, his lungs protesting from the zing of ozone in the air.

"The elements shall not rest until this building be rent asunder. I stood by when Steve Rogers fell by your hand," Thor's voice boomed, bolts of jagged lightning accompanying each word. "For such matters were for men with feeble minds, who dared to place their hands on the runes of chance."

Tony rolled, braced his hand against the floor, and got to one knee. "Foolish-" he sputtered. "I not only dared," he rasped. "I calculated, and brought Steve over. The probabilities were on my side, and you know-" Tony smiled, as he pressed his palm against his suit. The air hummed and Steve felt a low level vibration under his feet.

"Thou shalt not stand there with the aim of killing another noble being. The mead of power hath driven thee to the edge and -"

"C'mon, we have to go!" Rikki seemed to appear from out of thin air, her shield raised, protecting them both from the sparks of lightning. "We can't stay here!"

"What's going on?"

Rikki didn't answer as she charged ahead of Steve, her photoshield deflecting a plasma blast from the region of the ceiling. "I've only heard about it from Miz Danvers," Rikki sobbed through breaths. "The buildings respond to Mr Stark's thoughts and-"

"Look out!" Steve cried, as he yanked her out of the way as a blade just seemingly flashed from the steel wall.

"We hafta go!" Rikki's voice came close to a choked sob. "Mr Stark - according to the texts, he's tied into the buildings of the city. If we bring him down, we have to do so quickly before he sets the buildings to blow."

"What do you mean?"

"The texts - when probabilities confound the odds, we clear the decks and start again."

Steve kept moving. They couldn't turn back, with the passages twisting and narrowing into nothingness. "What do you mean?"

"Tony Stark is wired to most of the buildings in NYC. If he feels threatened, he'll wipe the slate clean, by -"

"Blowing up New York City?!"

Rikki's eyes were wide, her pupils almost overtaking the brown of her irises. "No, he'll wipe out the entire planet."

 **Chapter Four**

Carol circled Wanda, as they floated above New York. The air crackled and singed with ozone and electricity. Carol flinched as a spark of lighting bounced on her skin. "Ouch," she hissed, before realising that it didn't hurt, her reaction was more out of reflex than -

"The lightning has disabled the blimps," Wanda explained, her cloak snapped and rolled, a sheet of scarlet buffeted by the wind. "You're free to do what you need to do. I need to concentrate."

Carol didn't move, Wanda's eyes were shut, her hands outstretched, her fingers forming various mundras. The flinch of pain rippled across her features with every movement. "Will you be okay?"

"Go. You know what the texts say."

Carol nodded, half distracted by the feeling of unfettered power rocking her body to and fro. She felt on fire, after so long of living on rations of power, now to have it unfettered, and raging- she'd hold it together, she had to.

Wanda felt, more than heard Carol leave. Now that the blimps were destroyed, her powers were returning, the pain ebbing. The possibilities played themselves out in her mind with such clarity, it almost crippled her with pleasure. She could see, and calculate chaos. Before, all her machinations were primitive, and with reflection, she thought about how she'd pushed them down this road, to overturn Tony Stark's order.

Probability, like magic, was mutable. You only needed a push here, or a tweak there.

 _Wanda stirred. Her hands, swathed in bandages, unable to move, because each movement brought explosions of pain. Her face -_

"Come on, we're getting out of here," Carol's voice was a hiss in her ear, and Wanda shook her head.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't know," Carol's eyes were uncertain, a far cry from when they first fought. "I just - you need to be quiet, okay?"

Another cog in the wheel. Tony Stark's weakness lay in the fact that he had always set great store by calculations, and order. Wanda focused on the event - Stark had the means to destroy the world- and pushed against the possibility. That had been Tony's weakness, that he never factored in the option that someone could have pushed against the possibility. She never needed all her powers to do so. Just a fraction, and her wits, until now.

 _"You want me to put a blind item in my dad's e-zine about that guy who claims to be Steve Rogers? You know that Mr Stark combs the airwaves, right? Have you forgotten those blimps in the sky? They aren't just for dampening our powers you know." Anya's tone was brusque, bordering on rude. Pity, how the young never stayed young in the best ways._

 _"It's time."_

 _"Miz Danvers won't like it."_

 _"No," Wanda agreed. "Carol won't, and she shouldn't. But we can't stay in this same position forever. Probability isn't on our side, Anya Sofia, I'm sorry."_

 _"She'll - she saved me. Took us in."_

 _Wanda gave Sofia's shoulder a gentle squeeze, wishing that she could have done it some other way. "We're returning the favour. Please, do this."_

 _The look in Sofia's eyes told Wanda that she didn't believe, but she'd do it anyway._

At night, when Carol and everyone slept, she stayed awake, her knee marking the page of Anya's text book. According to the order, other universes existed. If she'd read the texts right, she could 'tap' into the other alternative verses, and 'snag' them over to the other side. _Hyperspace_ , Tony Stark had called it. Beyond the four dimensions, beyond gravity, there were ripples from the other side, probably as little as a millimetre thick in terms of distance. Wanda looked on the equations that she'd written out in the sand with her fingers. She focused on them, _willing_ another universe to open up, to snag a Steve from anywhere. Threw her powers at the psi walls which dampened them, akin to hitting her head against steel beams, or cutting her wrists for the slickness of the blood to allow her to work her hand free. Levels and degrees of pain, so intense, Wanda would bite her fist to keep from crying out, her skin giving way to her teeth. Or she would absently wipe at the blood dripping from her nose, reaching out, blinding grabbing at events and trying to control them, pushing probables into favourables.

 _"There was a mutant, someone who controlled probability, mutability, cardinal and fixed lines. So the history says. She threw cardinal points into mutable, blurred the fixed boundaries... and had to be stopped."_

Tony Stark damned her, and in turn, he damned himself.

Wanda lifted her hands above her head, before bringing them down her sides, her power manifesting itself into a pentagram around Manhattan, about twenty miles wide. The sky glowed, as the Zeppelins started to spark, and malfunction.

 _It's been too long since I've had the full use of my powers,_ she thought, as her fingers trembled a bit too much for a few seconds. _I need to be careful, lest I lose control._

* * *

"We're here," Rikki sobbed, as she threw herself against a round door about three metres in diameter, and fashioned to look like an old fashioned safe. But with a twist. To the side, instead of keys, there were numbers - neon numbers streaming down the screen.

"What is here?"

"According to Sam Wilson, Tony Stark's everything." Rikki said. "We've been piecing information since forever."

"We? You're only fifteen if that, Rikki."

"I've been with Miz Danvers since ten," Rikki peered at the screen, as the numbers started cascading faster down screen. "Oh, no."

"Nineteen, twenty seven, thirty five, forty three..." Steve read.

"Huh?" Rikki shook her head. "Oh, that's easy," she touched the screen. "This is a 'common difference'. We've done that in school. Fifty one, fifty nine. Now it's changing again."

Another crack, and the floor rolled underfoot, causing Rikki's fingers to slide across the screen, and she yelped. "Oh no, my finger slipped. We need to get in there. But I can't. The numbers have shifted again. One four four, two three three, three seven seven, six ten-" she read.

Wait, the sequence of numbers sounded familiar. They had to get in, and try and disable the devices within. But he just needed to think. "What are the other numbers?"

"one five nine seven, two five eight four."

"Type in four one eight one, six seven six five and one zero nine four six."

Rikki did as bid. Only for the machine screen to go blank, and the door rolling away from the entrance. "Open sesame," Steve said, as he ran inside.

"Gnarly, how did you know?"

"I lived with scientists for a long while in the Avengers' mansion. Some things just stick." Also, the numbers would have followed a pattern, because that was just Tony.

A BOOM tore through the building, all sound and noise at the same time, rocking them back and forth, the floor suddenly rippling as though it were liquid, almost causing them both to lose their footing.

"What's going on up there?"

Steve had an idea, with Thor and Tony coming to blows. He should have been there, trying to mitigate matters, but he had to disable whatever was in this room first. He scanned the room, seeing nothing but armours in various states of assembly, steel beams and acres of screens along the walls. The building rumbled again, and Steve swore that he could have heard the steel girders which supported the building creak under the stresses. This wasn't what they wanted, this was... an armoury.

"We're in the wrong room." Steve didn't spare time to curse their bad luck.

"What?"

"Rikki, we need to go."

"What-?"

They had no time. Steve grabbed Rikki by her hand, and they sprinted towards the exit, back to the - "We can't go back there!" Rikki panted as soon as she clocked where they were going - back to where Tony and Thor were engaged in battle.

 

* * *

["Armour systems dented, functioning capacity at forty percent"]

Tony shrugged it off. He'd overcome worse odds, although, not from fighting with an angry god. He held out his arms, turned his repulsors to full. Even with his helmet filtering most of the light, the intensity still made his eyes tear.

"Tony! Thor, no!" Steve's voice came from far away, but Tony was still attuned to its vibrations and tenor. Despite whatever universe, it did the trick; Thor 's power now less intense, as if someone turned down the controls, but no less dangerous, with the scald and smoke from the armour.

"Steven," Thor's voice now softer, less of a boom as his feet lightly touched the ground, the whipping winds replaced by calm, zephyrs. "Friend Steven."

Tony, sensing his chance, shot a bolt at Steve, immobilising him. Thor took a step forward, and then froze, as Tony flew to Steve's side, his palm turned outwards, repulsors set to kill.

"What manner of treachery is this?"

"Can't you see, Thor? Steve - another Steve. We can continue as we were before. We have a second chance!"

"Nay, Tony. This will not come to pass."

 

From his prison of Tony's stun, Steve watched the actions before him. A pang of sorrow crossed Thor's features as he raised his hammer. The top floor of which Tony's office now disappeared into rolling, heavy anvil shaped clouds, their edges illuminated with flashes of lightning. The air zinging with the might of power, and forked lightning everywhere.

 _Oh my Lord, no. He was going to kill him_. Steve raised his hand - _damn it, I can't move_ , to warn Tony, to try and stop Thor. To say anything - only for a blur to swoop down, bracing herself between Tony and the fork of lightning. Her elbow accidentally caught Tony in the throat. He fell to the ground, clutching and whimpering in pain.

"Miz Danvers!" Steve heard Rikki's shattered sob. "No!"

Steve felt himself falling to the ground, tried to stop himself and - he could?- was the thought as his arms reflexively reached out to break his fall.

"Woman! Art thou mad?" Thor clamped down just in time, so that Carol wouldn't be electrocuted again.

"No!" Carol coughed, as she tried to get up. Her hair singed and blackened at the ends, her skin ruddy, but not burnt or roasted. "We can't just kill him!"

"He'll rise again."

"Then, it's a risk that we'll have to take," Carol coughed, gesturing Rikki to stay back, Carol braced her knee in the junction between Tony's neck and shoulder, as she lifted her head to address Thor. "But like it or not, there's a process, and an order to things. You have to give us that. There's been enough chaos as it is."

Thor nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. "So be thy will. Carol."

With an all mighty clap of thunder and a flash of light, Thor disappeared.

 

 **Chapter Five**

"Here you are," Anya waved her arms, to indicate their surroundings. "This is where we found you."

Just a ditch, in one of the sewers just outside Brooklyn. In the day, without the Zeppelins, it just looked like another part of the city that no one checked on, just two girls going exploring.

"I - thanks for taking me in," Steve smiled at both of them. Rikki grinned, and Steve knew, that in this world, she didn't remember him. With Anya and her holding hands and Carol and Wanda in the distance, Rikki was now a girl with a world, and it was best this way.

"It was all in a day's work," Rikki beamed, as Anya let her hand go, and started moving around.

"What you did was dangerous," Steve felt the need to say something along those lines. What was it about war and unrest that attracted a certain sort of teen? First Bucky, then the Young Avengers and now -

"Hey, _amigo_ , is this the thing you were looking for?" Sofia gingerly touched the boot with the toe of her shoe.

It was, that same cracked boot, laying on its side, and Steve took it up. What were the odds that this would have been the same -? He raised his head, the whip of Wanda's red cloak catching his eye.

Before he had a chance to form the words of thanks, the air warped and twisted around him. His stomach felt as if someone had wrapped their fingers in his intestines, and tugged him forward.

Steve was going back home.

Fin.


End file.
